


Breaking the Waves

by Melusine10



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Bottom Hannibal, Hannibal is a Cannibal, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, No one needs to help Will, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale, Rich Will, Role Reversal, Top Will, Where's Hannibal, Will Knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 04:58:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6597676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine10/pseuds/Melusine10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Atlantic pulls them in every direction, pulls them apart, rushes them together. From deep within, Will summons a matchless, bottomless outrage. He survives. When he wakes, Hannibal is nowhere to be found. Will isn't convinced he needs to move on, but while he waits, he decides it is high time to stop hiding behind rumpled clothes and slipping glasses. Can he trust Hannibal to return to him? Could they ever trust each other after all their misdirection and manipulation? Plot, fluff, and porn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Inspired by the Hannibal auction and all the curious little details it revealed.
> 
> My first foray into this glorious, awesome fandom. Why wasn't I here earlier!? I hope you enjoy this short story. It's rather intimidating to add an entry into such an incredible crew of accomplished writers!

They hit the punishing wall of water together, breaking the waves and slipping down into the inky abyss. The cold hits moments later and slices them into gory ribbons. Hannibal’s hand goes slack in his and Will frantically clutches it. He cannot let go. It is his only thought. His arm reaches for the rest of the man, but there is nothing but a void and noise. Bubbles everywhere and none to breathe. A rush of seawater scalds his lungs; Hannibal’s name is a drowned scream in his throat. The Atlantic pulls them in every direction, pulls them apart, rushes them together. Will’s legs flail pointlessly against the tumult.

Somewhere beyond the flesh of Hannibal’s hand is an anchor of uncooperative weight, threatening to break loose with every swell and plummet. Will _cannot_ let go. He struggles with violence and clarity. Surely the ocean is no match for them – not as they are now, unified in purpose, whole at last. Nature ought to yield in their embrace. Swallow them whole or spit them out. She does not. She cannot _see._ From deep within, Will summons a matchless, bottomless outrage. He survives. This is his design.

The first burst of oxygen into his lungs burns worse than the water. The sounds his body makes are alien. He breathes and breathes and breathes. There still isn’t enough air. Gouts of his own hot blood are pouring down his face and chest and only when he realizes that he’s warming himself from the outside in does he crack his salted eyes. His hands are buried in the sand. He is holding on to nothing.

<> 

Will wakes in a pool of sweat, his t-shirt soaking. The sheets are hot ligatures around him and he tears them off in a single motion. It is always the same part of the dream that wrenches him to consciousness – the part of the memory he is not sure is real or imagined.

His mouth is on Hannibal’s, then his overlapped palms pound rhythmically against his chest. He listens again to the cold silence of the drowned man’s heart and begins pumping again, pushing his very life into him. _Survive_ , he screams, filling Hannibal’s lungs with his own breath. The first sluggish heartbeat still echoes in his mind. The only sound he hears after it is the choking gag Hannibal makes when he vomits a flood of blood and ocean into the sand. Then there is nothing. The dream ends and he is always awake.

Will pours a shaky splash of scotch in a tumbler and downs it. He doesn’t try to sleep. There is no sleeping when he wakes, again, still alone and hands empty. 

<> 

The first time he woke in this new life beyond death was to the sight of faces suspended over the bleary cap of an oxygen mask. “Mr. Graham,” the medic shouts too loud. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Hannibal,” he manages, trying to pull off the mask that obscures his thin voice. He meant it as a question. The medic took it for an answer. Maybe it is both. Hannibal would like that, narcissist that he is. Will laughs weakly at his own joke and the medic tightens the elastic around the padding on his ruined cheek. He tells Will it’s going to be okay. Will Graham has never been okay. Now would be a terrible time to start. 

<> 

The following days and months blur into an unfocused medical phantasm. The ambulance became the ER, then the ICU, and later, the psychiatric ward.

Molly visits and leaves almost as quickly. Telling her outright that he is never coming home seems only fair. Jack arrives and so does Alana. Beverly and Abigail come too, although they are dead and their ghosts are silent. But then so are the living, mostly. They each want answers where Will has none. Jack, true to form, loses his patience first.

“Did. He. Die. Will,” Jack bellows in punctuated bursts. “I need to know. I’ve got the entire eastern branch of the U.S. Coast Guard out there looking and they’re pulling up nothing but kelp. We’ve got nothing. You have to remember something – ”

Will turns his head to look out the modest window of his hospital room. The flat gray sky yields no response. “What hospital am I in?” he asks instead.

 Outside blackbirds twist in the cold and dart and dive in pairs. He wishes he could fly away with them, but his wings are far blacker and cast too many shadows. He should have fled much, much sooner. Jack is steadfastly suspicious of him, a bloodhound on the trail of Will’s equivocations and half-truths. He leaves and returns, day after day. Without fail Will looks up from where he is buried in his hospital bed with a hope that falls flat. It is always the wrong silhouette shading his doorway. Alana eventually intervenes with Jack, always content to play the protector, still willing herself to be blind to the profound darkness in others. The shadows of visitors lessen, though what lingers is far worse. There is nothing in this world left untouched by Hannibal’s influence. Will cannot go back to a time or place before him. 

<> 

He is still convalescing, bedridden but now upright, when the lawyers come with papers. Something to do with Dr. Lecter’s death and would he sign and sure, sure – anything to send them away and stop saying that name. The nurses hover and fuss with his cables and wires and give him endless miniature paper cups of pills and water. He takes all of their manhandling without complaint.

Only when the fame-thirsty psychiatrists arrive does he resist. They present themselves in full deprecation, laying out their qualifications like offerings, desperate to take a tumble in his mind. There would be no consent to ‘examine’ him. He _has_ a psychiatrist.

“Who tried to kill you, Agent Graham. Who is now dead,” replies one overconfident doctor to his rejection. He speaks of Hannibal dying with far too much glee. An impulse wells up within Will, unflinching and pure in its hate. Hannibal would breathe steadily over that ember until it burst into flames. Will meets the man’s gaze with steely eyes.

“Perhaps you ought to visit with Dr. Chilton instead? It might be enlightening to see the result of that ‘collaboration,’” he says mockingly, clicking his teeth.

The prospective doctor pales first, then begins to sweat. He scrambles to gather his papers and clamors backwards out the door with excuses and apologies. The truth, however, is plain in his terror. He is not prepared to understand whatever Will Graham is.

 _Appallingly rude of you, Will,_ he imagines Hannibal might say.

Will smiles. _Not nearly rude enough_ , he counters and he knows Hannibal’s eyes would dance in delight.

Conjuring Hannibal is a step too far. His presence reactivates, grows bold, and crackles over Will’s skin like charged air in a storm. Will allows the specter to settle around his shoulders. He isn’t sure how long it rests there before he pulls it closer. He wraps himself in memory, channeling the person Hannibal wore over the monster. Its twin lives beneath his skin - the very same shadow he’d hidden in himself for so long.

No one bothers Will again following his threat to the psychiatrist. He asks only to have the respite of his room. The staff seem relieved that he refuses to participate in the glue-stick and papier mâché classes they call therapy. Left to his own devices, his physical wounds begin to heal. The stiches and casts and bandages peel off in turns, revealing the shell of a man who bears many scars.

 _Scars to remind you that the past was real_ , chimes the warm, accented voice in his head.

“We gave each other so many scars, Hannibal.” Will absentmindedly strokes the marred flesh that sits low on his belly. The touch makes him shiver. “We were more real than anything I’ve ever known. I just…I wasn’t ready to see.”

_And when you saw?_

“I gave us what we love.”

_The poetry of life at the edge of death._

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

_It was beautiful, Will._

Even as his body regains its strength, his mind remains the same. He doesn’t want it to heal from all that transpired. He needs to feel the tender chords that sear him straight through, that open him up to himself. He dines on this buffet of self-discovery. Every mysterious cut was placed with such exacting care. Every incision was he and Hannibal’s doing, the result of their _pas de deux_. For every step of Hannibal’s guidance, there was Will’s resistance. With each act of Hannibal’s outrageous meddling, Will matched it with cruel manipulation.

In the solace of his room and in the darkness of the night, Will plucks at these strings to discover what songs they might yield. He does not yet understand their composition without Hannibal. He cannot imagine what choreography they require. It was all a work in progress. A work, interrupted. 

<> 

It is spring when he signs himself out. On the steps of the hospital, Will expects the first lungful of air without the acrid sting of disinfectants will invigorate him. Instead, the freedom cloys at him. He doesn’t hesitate. Like a guileless leaf twisting on the back of a breeze, instinct carries him to Bedelia du Maurier’s front stoop. He rings the bell once, then twice.

Bedelia answers the door and, as if expecting him all along, lets him in without comment. Her red dress is slit thigh-high and draws attention away from the prosthetic leg she now wears on the other, unexposed limb. In her innocuous sitting room, they settle into overstuffed armchairs and Will sips at the sweet amber liquid she has poured him. Neither exert themselves with pointless small talk.

“You believe he is still alive.”

Will gives a shattered smile and stares into his glass. He nods.

“And you are afraid it is just a fantasy.”

“I saw myself giving him CPR. I resuscitated him.” The admission feels foreign on his lips. He’s told no one until now.

“It could be a fervent wish,” she says, knowing his perfect empathy often left him unable to discern between reality and unreality.

“It could be the truth,” he counters.

Jack and company had scoured the Atlantic for weeks. They wanted the proof – the tattered, bloated remains of a monster. They found none. The fact lay raw and open before Bedelia and Will. It is deafening and it haunts every corner of the universe with its unconsummated possibility.

“He is either dead or he is alive,” Bedelia says.

“Either way, we are going to live in the ellipsis of those prospects.”

“Waiting indefinitely for the incontrovertible.”

“Suspended living.”

“Like vegetables,” she says with a little quirk in her mouth.

Will laughs and rubs his beard. He’s pretty sure he can hear Hannibal humming his enjoyment too. “We’ll wait, Bedelia, until the waiting itself destroys us.”

“Or he returns to do the job himself.”

“You play, you pay, doctor.”

To that, she raises her glass.

They talk until the sun grows low. Bedelia invites him to stay for supper. They eat at her kitchen island in simple elegance, serving themselves from a common dish, a fluttering taper candle between them.

“This is…intimate,” he observes.

“You are horrifyingly familiar,” she says.

“Do you still have it?” he asks of the leg she’d severed herself. He doesn’t need to ask whether she had set a table set for three. He already knows it was.

“I do.” He glances at her freezer. Such a foolish error to think she could bargain with the devil. “No reprimands for me?”

He gives her a sympathetic smile. “Is it important to you that I say you made a mistake? No one can plan for Hannibal when he happens to you.”

Bedelia arches her eyebrows in amusement and bites slice of roasted new potato with precision.

Near midnight, Bedelia directs him to the guest room Hannibal had preferred. Will follows her wordlessly. There is no awkward discussion of desires and motivations. Will needs some kind of proxy to digest what he has done. Bedelia is not unsympathetic, exactly, though the sound of the deadbolt locking on her boudoir door speaks volumes. Out of the scrutiny of her chilly, calculating stare, Will unravels his carefully coiled empathy. He lets it run riot over surfaces, everywhere finding hints of Hannibal hanging on the dust and shadows and scents long gone cold.

The same night terror wakes Will like clockwork in the small hour before dawn. The same drowning, the same resurrection. He finds a stack of Hannibal’s crisply pressed dress shirts and slacks in the top drawer of an otherwise empty dresser. The shirt is too broad in the shoulders and the cuffs hang over his wrists. Watching his reflection in the frame over the armoire, he sees himself take on a decided shape. He grows more distinct and unwavering with each button he fastens.

He had tried, not very subtly or successfully, to up his sartorial game in order to better play the lure for Hannibal. His father taught him that using the right bait is important. It shows a certain respect and understanding of a predator. His feeble attempt culminated in Chiyoh shooting a hole in the beautiful blazer he’d had made to wear in Europe. How Hannibal’s eyes had blazed with fury when he recognized his own tailor’s signature stitching in the shredded lining. His Patroclus cut down in borrowed armor.

Will tries a pair of pants. They are loose as well. The clothes Alana brought him at the hospital lay rumpled pathetically on the floor. Poorly made and utilitarian, just like the mask he’d tried to wear for so long. He tosses them into the waste bin with distain. He would borrow Hannibal’s armor a little longer until he could find his own.

Before Will leaves, he sets out a plate with a toasted bagel and slices of smoked salmon, garnished with capers and sprigs of dill. He covers it carefully in plastic wrap and leaves a note thanking Bedelia for her hospitality. It is a pathetic attempt, he knows, but an attempt nevertheless. He has nothing but time now to learn. 

<> 

In Wolf Trap, Will passes his former home. The new owners had repainted it and landscaped the surrounding grounds into a proper yard. It sparks nothing but indifference. If he were to dwell on it further, it might even inspire contempt. For all his finicky and refined tastes, Hannibal never once begrudged him for his ramshackle lifestyle. He only ever wanted to be a better refuge than Will’s collection of broken motors and abandoned dogs.

 _They were not worthy reflections of you_ , Hannibal whispers.

Will keeps driving. “No, they were the reflections of a man who had convinced himself he should be discarded too.”

_Your mother abandoned you._

“Really? You're going with Mommy issues? Such blunt psychoanalysis is beneath you, Dr. Lecter.”

Will continues up the winding road to an old neighbor who had agreed to look after his boat. It was the only thing of his life here that he had left behind. He had not planned to retrieve it and yet he knew he would retrieve it if he needed a different plan. When had he started living this way, chasing two opposing streams at once? Was it the day he met Hannibal or sometime after? No single moment stands out. It was every moment he had ever spent with the man. 

<> 

After locating the boat trailer in a weed-strewn patch, it took several days to repair damages the craft had suffered after years of neglect.  Once completed, Will stocks the craft fully and heads straight to sea. For weeks he sails aimlessly up and down the eastern seaboard, always circling back to find himself exactly where he figures he’ll always be – the rocky cliffs where he and Hannibal fell. He finds spits of sand and stone that might have been the shoreline where they landed, but none correspond exactly to the image in his head. It is too full of Hannibal’s ashen face, his sodden hair, and slack, watery mouth. The undefined edges of the dreamy memory upset him and taunt him with doubt.

“It is 4:43am. I am sailing due west at three knots. I am looking for you,” he says out loud. He takes a reading off his GPS and jots it in his notebook. For good measure, he draws a small clock face beside the coordinates. This marker will take its designated place in the string of sites that compose his pilgrimage. On these beaches, he sits for hours as the tide draws out and the sun drops down. Sometimes he reads from a water-damaged copy of Walt Whitman and hears Hannibal’s little huff of a laugh at certain passages which Will then dog-ears to revisit. Other times they talk – about everything and nothing. More often than not, he imagines the shock of Hannibal’s fingers suddenly settling on his shoulder and how he would say “Hello, Will,” and the rumble of his liquid voice would warm his belly. Will waits for the shock and the shock does not come, so he travels in circles and continues to wait. 

<> 

When he can no longer bear waiting alone, he visits Bedelia again. In his absence, various lawyers had come calling. Bedelia took the liberty of intervening on his behalf, much to Jack’s suspicion and chagrin. Molly had served him with divorce papers as he had gently suggested. These were straightforward. Less so were the files from Hannibal’s lawyers. Bedelia lays out the paperwork in orderly stacks for him to inspect. Will’s confusion is smattered plainly on his face.

“Hannibal had a living will,” she calmly explains. “It seems, Will, that you are now an extraordinarily wealthy man.”

Hannibal had left everything to him.

“His living Will,” he says joylessly. “His grave and his heir. A modern tragedy all put together at wrong angles. I wasn’t supposed to survive. Or he wasn’t supposed to die. Not one without the other.”

“You are indulging in the macabre.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think, Bedelia?” He touches her plastic limb with a meaningful look and signs on the dotted line.

Days pass before Bedelia prods him over the logistics of the estate. Will immediately resolves that Hannibal’s Baltimore property should remain untouched. He cannot bear to see its lavish furnishings covered in plastic sheeting like more of Hannibal’s victims in the morgue. When Bedelia suggests he might like to have his grey leather chairs, the thought of them empty, still opposing each other and collecting dust, renders him inconsolable. She is forced to sedate him for nearly a day lest he destroy his liver hunting for absolution at the bottom of a bottle. In the end, a housekeeper is sent to retrieve a single item – the _cire perdue_ elk sculpture from the office suite. Beyond these first simple decisions, he does not know how to be someone with this much money, let alone be someone who knows what to do with it.

 _I gave you a great gift, Will._ Hannibal is looming over his shoulder, simmering underneath his calm.

“To reject it would be unspeakably rude,” he reasons. “You’ve given me everything you had.”

_Just so, dear boy. Just so._

“I accept it. I accept you, Hannibal. I always have. I just didn't accept how much of you I recognized in myself.”

For reasons Will isn’t sure he wants to know, Bedelia decides to play the ally, passing along recommendations and making introductions. She helps Will book appointments in dramatically lit studios that stock too little and are stuffed with too many wait staff.  Bedelia invariably accompanies him, a beautiful prop in another beautiful store. She is ever at his elbow with helpful suggestions to speed along his transformation. It feels right. Overdue, perhaps. Will Graham no longer hides behind shuffling, baggy clothes and slipping glasses.

Will sells his ramshackle boat and replaces it with something far sleeker. He anchors it below Hannibal’s oceanside home. It is now his home. Staggering amounts of money allow for staggering architectural feats, he learns. Within months, the rock face supporting the house is reinforced. Their bluff will hold, for now.

Hannibal’s suits are gently pushed aside to make room for the bespoke clothing Will commissions. He uses different tailors and different fabrics, half-Windsor knots for his ties and absolutely no bold windowpane patterns under any circumstances. He prefers waistcoats without jackets and Chelsea boots over Oxfords. His grooming regimen is still simple, but with far finer products for his skin and hair. It is not straightforward sentimentalism, nor is it tawdry mimicry. His new armor is his own - unique and seductive. He is Will with a broadened palate, so to speak. Will - hidden in plain sight.

He now has more than enough time to indulge the past times he neglected or was too poor to attempt. The harpsichord in the living room is put in climate controlled storage and replaced with a suitable baby grand. He attends tastings of rare whisky breeds and builds a respectable collection. He even takes private cooking lessons with a Catalan chef and discovers his appreciation of all things porcine. Bedelia comes for dinner sometimes. Their ritual is always the same. They cook together in the generous kitchen, constructing sumptuous tableaux and passing their evenings in pleasant charade. There is only one rule and it is easy, because it is the one thing neither of them can forget: they never, ever speak of Hannibal.

When she leaves, he is alone. Will invites no other company and hosts no other guests. When loneliness begins to nag at him and it does, he must admit, visit often, he pulls up anchor and takes to the sea. He circles the sound and he watches and he waits.

He always comes back emptyhanded. 

<> 

 Alana brazenly shows up on in his portico one afternoon with demands and accusations.

“Will,” she says and her eyes go a little wide when she sees him. “I’ve been worried about you.”

He drops the long arm that bars the doorway and ushers her in. Her gaze lingers on his clean-shaven face and the long, foppish curls he’s grown out and styled. He looks a decade younger. He’s dressed as someone unattainable, someone too pretty to be entirely real. When he offers her a seat, Alana refuses and paces the living room. She’s spent half the drive out working herself into a state only to be thrown off course completely by what she finds. Will watches her wind herself up from the settee, arms spread wide and bare feet strong and suggestive in the thick carpeting. The open buttons trailing the collar of his throat are obscene. He is leonine and virile in a way she had refused to see and now that he is wielding his beauty so expertly it cannot be ignored. He smiles just enough to appear pleasant and waits, curious to see the lengths she will go to tell him her version of what is best for him. In no time at all, she does. He weathers it impassively, her tangle of emotions surgically locked out of his head.

“You’ve got to stop whatever this is. Cutting ties to everyone you know, shutting yourself away…being here is toxic for you, Will. You can’t move past your trauma if you cling to it.”

“Who says I am trying to move past it?”

“Who are you? I feel like I don’t even know you anymore! The Will Graham I know would never -”

Her audacity rouses the beast in him and he rises to his full height.

 _A scandalous lack of decorum_ , _Dr. Bloom,_ Hannibal supplies.

“I outgrew the Will Graham you knew a long time ago. Now if you don’t mind, I must ask you to go.”

She protests, rather indignantly. “I think you’re having some kind of a psychotic break. Please, let me help you.”

“I don’t recall seeking out your advice, Alana. I owe you no explanations and I am absolutely done being every else’s broken plaything. Now please, let me see you out.” He has corralled her back into the entryway and nearly has her out the door.

“Hannibal is dead, Will,” she hisses at him and the words curdle his blood. The flame of anger spreads through his limbs and he curls his fist in his pants pocket. He knows if she doesn’t leave immediately, this will get very ugly, very fast.

“For your sake, I hope you’re right. After all, Hannibal always keeps his promises.” He slams the door in her slack-jawed face.

By the week’s end, he has a construction team install a formidable gate around the property. The only way to enter the grounds now is to be buzzed in like a proper guest or to summit the treacherous stairwell carved into the wet stone of the cliff. The stairwell is not visible from the water down below. It's concealed among the twisted, unforgiving edges of granite. Only someone who had explored these beaches well would know.

 _Someone like me?_ Hannibal teases.

"Please let it be you," Will says. "Please, Hannibal. Come back to me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone shows up in Will's living room. There is a lot to discuss. Philosophy. Art. Kinks. Battle scars. You know, just the usual in Hannigramland. Porn ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for canon-typical topics.

Over a year passes. The conversations Will has actually had with Hannibal begin to blur with the ones he regularly imagines they have. So many things were left unsaid. He talks to him constantly. It is a life lived in the twilight of hope and abandoned expectation, a pantomime of what could have been.

“Do you think this gastrique has the right consistency?” he asks of the bright red sauce he’s stirring. “It looks wrong.”

Hannibal knows, of course, but he never helps him out with these culinary forays. Will tastes the sweet acidic liquid and shrugs, drizzling it over the fish he has plated. It will have to do. The wilted vegetables are ready and he arranges the stems in an orderly manner. In a side drawer, he digs out a lighter and heads to the dining room to light a few candles. When he jogs down the two steps of the split level floor, he stops dead in his tracks.

Someone is standing in his living room by the piano.

Instinctively, Will reaches for something to use as a weapon. His fingers quickly close around a letter opener, but his brain suddenly catches up with his actions. He winces and runs a hand over his face, certain he is hallucinating. It must be a hallucination. Nothing else could explain the sight before him - a scruffy man in jeans and a track jacket layered over a hoodie. The figure sets down a large olive green duffel bag.

“Hello, Will.”

The voice resonates through the very marrow of his bones. His knees go weak and he drops the letter opener and grabs the sideboard to stay upright. The man narrows his eyes in understanding. Glancing at the clock on the mantle, he takes a step forward, hands reassuringly held up, unarmed.

“It is nearly 8pm in Maryland. You are Will Graham. And I have come back to you.”

An angry tear streaks down Will’s cheek.

“This is real, Will.”

“Don’t lie to me!” he shouts at the phantom and wipes the tears away with the back of his hand.

“I’m here.”

“No. Don't.” He grasps the side of his head, furious that his psyche would conjure something so viciously painful.

“Look at me, Will. This is real. I am here. See?” Hannibal places a cautious hand on his arm and Will can _feel_ the soft heat of the man. He can feel him!

“Son of a bitch!” he jerks his arm away in shock. 

Hannibal smiles - a full smile that travels all the way to his eyes and he extends his open arms. Realization dawns on Will and a choked sob slips past his lips. He falls into Hannibal's embrace and his composure shatters entirely when a pair of strong, warm hands circle his back. Real hands. This was real. They hold each other for what feels like an eternity.

“What took you so long? I’ve been losing my mind waiting for you!” Will barks into the rough cotton of his chest. “Are you okay?? You weren’t seen getting here, were you? Oh god, Hannibal…”

Hannibal pulls back to look at the treasure in his arms. He doesn’t try to hide how hungrily he stares at this version of the man, how possessively he latches on to Will’s slender aproned waist, how his fingers trail over the perfectly tailored shirt rolled up over his tanned forearms.

“My dear, clever boy. How you have outdone yourself.” He cannot resist palming the sculpted curls that tumble down over Will’s ears, nor can he stop from skating his bare knuckles over Will’s smooth jawline.

“I could say the same. What the hell are you wearing?” Will hugs him again just as tightly and pastes chaste kisses on Hannibal’s stubbly cheek, laughing and crying all at once. “You smell like cigarettes and motor oil.”

“Courtesy of my chauffeur, I’m afraid.”

Will rests his forehead against Hannibal’s, not content to let even air come between them. There are a tangle of questions for him that all threaten to rush out at once. Where has he been all this time? How did he survive? Where would they go? Why did truckers _still_ not know better than to pick up hitchhikers?

Impulsively, he kisses Hannibal’s mouth and asks instead “Are you hungry?”

Will’s lips are fleeting and entirely unexpected. Hannibal has stunned grin on his face. “I'm famished.” 

“Shower first?”

“If it’s all the same, let’s eat now.”

“Come on.” Will doesn’t let go of Hannibal’s hand.

 

In the kitchen, Will watches this alter ego of Hannibal with equal curiosity. His greying hair had been dyed dark and allowed to grow wild. He bats at the long bangs that catch in his eyelashes as he inspects the dish on the counter. “This looks marvelous, Will.”

“I think I messed up the reduction.”

“Ah. Was it me with whom you were speaking before?”

Will nods.

“A little thin perhaps, but preferable over something too heavy for such a delicate fish. Your own catch?”

“Of course.”

Will makes up a second plate, relieved he’d cooked with the intention of having leftovers. Hannibal eats rapidly, apologizing for not slowing down to properly appreciate Will’s food. He accepts a beer and guzzles it in big gulps. Will can’t quite get over the sight of Hannibal doing anything rushed. He reaches across the table and takes his hand. “Forgive me.”

 Hannibal sets down his fork. “What do you wish to be forgiven for?”

“All of it. Nearly killing us. Wasting our time while I was hiding from myself.”

“I find it unnecessary to absolve you for what is not your fault.”

“You took a bullet for me and I thanked you by tossing us off a cliff. You’ve lost weight, been living on god knows what kind of gas station fare, and, no offense, are dressed like a Eurotrash soccer hooligan. You’re the reverse image of me at my worst. I’ve reduced you to this while you made me a filthy rich playboy.”

Hannibal smirks. “I’ve enjoyed walking in your shoes, Will.”

“You’re wearing _trainers._ ” He peeks under the table to confirm he hasn’t imagined them. “They have neon stripes. I’m pretty sure I never went around in neon anything.”

“I needed a different way to hide myself while I healed. This has been an unexpectedly interesting mask.”

“Interesting?”

“I met many people who I never would have encountered before. Seen and done things I never otherwise would have been open to experiencing. Besides, you’ve given me a great gift.”

“Better than a castle in Lithuania?” An errant thought reminds him he ought to tell Hannibal that there was a dead communist strung up as a firefly-shaped cochlear garden in his root cellar there. On second thought, he might table that for later.

“You’ve given me something I never dreamed of achieving: the gift of immortality. I am dead and yet I will live on.” His dark eyes glitter.

Will starts laughing and once he starts, he thinks he might never stop. “Now I’m sure I’m not dreaming. The Hannibal in my head is usually much more subtle about his god complex.”

 

<> 

 

Later, after he has showered and changed into a pair of Will’s flannel pajama pants, Hannibal looks a little more like himself. He has shaved and tamed his longer hair with a comb. Will is reading on the bed, waiting impatiently for him to emerge. He’s not quite ready to let him out of sight.

“I have something for you.” Will slides a business card across the duvet and Hannibal picks it up curiously.

“You are probably not aware that the box containing all your prized recipes was stolen.”

“Was it?”

“That is the name of the forensics technician who took it from evidence and sold it online.”

“How very naughty of him.”

“You can’t ever kill like the Ripper again.”

“No, of course not.”

“Maybe best to sit on it a while. Years, even.”

“Will you join me when the time comes?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I’m already complicit, but you know my tastes lay elsewhere.”

“Yes, you prefer the monsters. If you are unsure, why give me this?”

“To thank you for coming back to me.” _To beg you to stay,_ he thinks but cannot yet admit. Hannibal runs a tongue over his lip and nods. He carefully tucks the card away in the dresser drawer where Will had organized his old watches and handkerchiefs.

“A place was made for me in your world,” he observes, back still turned to Will.

“Yes.”

“The boat in the bay is yours?”

“Ours,” Will corrects. “For when we leave. Which we should probably do soon.”

“Luxury suits you. It pleases me to see that you’ve made yourself at home here.” Hannibal pads over to where Will is stretched out on the mattress and sits down. “Yet like Goldilocks, you’ve stolen my side of the bed.” Will thunks his copy of Whitman closed with a chuckle. He runs a hesitant hand down Hannibal’s back, pausing to touch the divot where Dolarhyde’s bullet had entered.

“Tell me what happened.”

Hannibal indulges him, listing his wounds, describing each one in a clinical and disinterested way. Will is dismayed that he cracked Hannibal’s sternum and broke three of his ribs resuscitating him, but Hannibal assures him the effort saved his life. It is also what nearly killed Will – the strain only hastened his blood loss. Somewhat wistfully, Hannibal describes how he lost a sizable chunk of his kidney but, thankfully, the organ had been salvaged. The pieces must have been right here out there on the living room floor.

“What a waste,” quips Will.

Hannibal is astonished. “You’d have eaten it?”

He gives him a knowing wink that makes goosebumps crawl up Hannibal’s neck. “It does seem like the polite thing to do. In butter and chervil, I think.”

“Paired with an Amarone,” Hannibal suggests.

They’re smiling stupidly at each other now and it’s almost too much. Will isn’t sure what they are supposed to do next, so he takes his turn detailing the carnage his body endured. He enumerates the bones broken, the worst of the cuts, the long days of physical therapy. Hannibal asks to see the stab wound on his upper chest and Will undoes his dress shirt.

“This one concerned me greatly. I was unsure whether the thoracoacromial artery had been severed.” He rubs the scar with a thumb. “Such a quick and silly cut. It could so easily have been fatal.”

“Did you have nightmares?”

“Yes. Often.” Hannibal does not elaborate. He then examines his range of motion, clucking his tongue in displeasure. Both of Will’s shoulders are a wreck. He’ll likely be arthritic in them sooner rather than later. Bullets and knife wounds and cartilage damage from the routine stress of absorbing gun recoils had left them with only palliative options. Hannibal’s cool probing fingers drift to the thick band of scar tissue on his abdomen and Will flinches and sucks in a ragged breath.

“It’s…sensitive,” he says in a low voice.

Hannibal’s hands simply move to his face. “Your surgeon is to be commended.”

“Your handiwork? Or the woman who fixed Dolarhyde’s number on my cheek?”

Hannibal ignores the jibe and strokes the fading red line hidden underneath his curls. “You haven’t had her begin laser treatments on this one yet.”

“That one is yours.” Their eyes lock. The unspoken heat there is too dangerous to begin excavating tonight. Hannibal gets up and slips on a t-shirt. When he returns, Will has relinquished Hannibal’s side of the bed and shed his pants.

“I can sleep elsewhere.”

“A place was made for you, Hannibal.”

Without argument, he crawls under the covers and within seconds is fast asleep.

 

<> 

 

Hannibal flips a page of the Baltimore Sun he’s perusing. He’s in last night’s jeans and a v-neck t-shirt with unruly hair. It curls slightly at the back of his neck like a duck’s tail. Will wonders if he knows it is awfully cute. He wonders if this version of Hannibal would kill the man who dared pair such a descriptor with his name.

“I need to ask you something,” Will says. “Is your compassion for me still an inconvenience?” The elaborate breakfast spread between them suddenly feels like it puts a mile of distance between them. 

Hannibal sets the newspaper down very slowly, gauging where Will wants to take this turn of conversation. “Did you lie when you said it wasn’t good to see me after years of my incarceration?”

Will can practically feel how the wrong answer could shatter everything all over again. “‘Good’ wasn’t the right word. It was overwhelming.”

“What overwhelmed you?” he asks, sliding right into psychiatrist mode as though he had never stopped practicing.

“You know exactly what. I felt too much of everything. Everything about the situation.”

“What distressed you the most, then?”

“Does my distress excite you? Or are all my sensations to be savored?”

Hannibal’s microexpressions go blank. It is the only response Will needs. He decides to indulge him.

“It was that god damn glass. The glass that separated me from you, my profane mirror. You were soooo quick to dismantle the lies I’d crafted to move on without you, to move on in spite of you. I always knew you would reflect the truth to me the minute I saw you and I wanted to smash that wall of glass and smash your face for putting it between us. It made the life I’d built with Molly look like a demented puppet show. As if _I_ was the one in a box all that time. But the glass was _your_ lie and I despised it.”

Hannibal tilts his head inquisitively. “Did you not reach through it and untwist the lie that separated us? Quite a clever sleight of hand, I must say. I hope Uncle Jack wasn’t too angry with you. I imagine he wanted a more definitive ending to our outing with the Dragon. At least one too few body bags filled for his taste.”

“Jack was forcibly retired six months ago. I’m not sure if it’s safer now that he doesn’t have access to the FBI’s labs or more dangerous because he has all the time in the world to brood on your fate.”

"Our fate," Hannibal qualifies. He straightens the edge of the newspaper to evenly match the edge of the table. It is a funny, incongruous habit, considering his appearance. He is dawdling, letting something simmer before hurling it at Will. “And how is the wife these days?”

Will doesn’t flinch. He expected this inevitable low blow. "I divorced Molly the same day I became the Lecter heir. Can’t keep those details out of the public records, I’m afraid. Freddy had a field day with that one. Or don’t you read the Tattler anymore?” Will takes a long sip of his espresso. “If good old Freddy is to be believed, I am your most _inconvenient_ murder husband.” Each syllable hangs coiled threateningly in the air. They had never openly addressed that rather unfortunate moniker. They had never really openly addressed most things, when it came down to it.

“For the serial killer with aspirations of escape, an accomplice would be rather inconvenient.”

“Your 'accomplice' is the reason you escaped in the first place. You had always planned to leave with me. For years you waited.” Will cannot help but think of the made-to-measure wardrobe Hannibal had waiting for him in Italy when he arrived and the other little things he found lying around this property that suggested he had always been part of Hannibal’s considerations. But it is too soon to begin nitpicking all the ways they tried and failed each other. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s going to allow Hannibal to gloss the truth as he pleases.

“Was I left to wait as punishment?”

“That would have been terribly petty.”

“You used a linoleum knife on me because you decided I wasn’t worthy of your Japanese steel. Don’t lecture me about pettiness.”

“Touché. You sipped wine and waited for Dolarhyde to ‘change’ me while I bled out on this very floor,” he counters.

“In my defense, I was told it was an excellent vintage. Some glutton dumped the rest on the ground.”

Hannibal bites back a smile and the tension in the room slackens. “No, Will. It wasn't punishment. I left as soon as I could manage. After my ‘accomplice’ helped me sustain major internal damage and drowned me, I lived hidden in an ER veterinarian’s basement for two weeks.”

“You didn’t…”

“No. Jack would have been looking for that.”

“ _I_ was looking for that.”

“Without money or papers or, truthfully, the desire to run too far, I took to nature, as you taught me. I passed the winter in an abandoned fire watch tower in Wyoming and later travelled along the back roads through the national forests. The landscapes are beautiful out west.”

“You mean they are dramatic. Which they are. I just wish you’d bothered with a post card. A call. Something.”

“You hoped I would compromise us to ease your concerns?” Will sighs. Yes. No. He wasn’t sure. He only knows how painful the waiting had been. How much bitterness built up over the not knowing. Over the being left behind. 

“The frustration was mutual, I assure you,” Hannibal says.

 

<> 

 

That night, Hannibal forgets to breathe when Will’s hand finds his under the covers. Hannibal tightens his long, surgeon’s fingers over Will’s and pulls his fist to his bare chest. Will can feel Hannibal’s heart hammering beneath his knuckles. The same heart he forced life back into. He is testing the waters, cataloguing Hannibal’s reactions to him.

“I didn’t mean to let go,” Will says under the cover of darkness. “I woke up and my hands were empty.”

“I couldn’t get us both out. Not as we were.”

“I won’t let go again.” It is as much a promise as it is a threat.

“My tenacious little mongoose. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Hannibal slips his arm around Will’s shoulders and pulls him to rest in the crook of his neck. When they wake the next morning, their hands are still entwined.

 

<> 

 

“I need to ask you something,” Will starts and Hannibal knows it will be more careful cross-examination. They are working their way through a bottle of cognac after supper, so whatever is gnawing inside Will’s head must be on the more troublesome side.

“Your crimes…they never involve a sexual element.”

He furrows his brow. “No. I find such violence extremely vile.”

“It is base,” Will supplies. “Vulgar. Although that perspective is almost unheard of for someone with your profile. You never did fit any mold.” He chews nervously at his cheek, the next bit an awkward gamble. “Bedelia was a convenience. She made your life more aesthetically pleasing and she helped you run. Alana…I suppose that was to have what I couldn’t have? For curiosity’s sake?”

“And convenience too. She provided me with an alibi. Matters of convenience seem to weigh heavily on you lately.”

Will ignores the deflection. “Are you asexual, Hannibal?”

“Certainly not. I have never denied myself any pleasurable experience. I thought you would know that by now.”

“Does your…sadism…extend to all arenas of your life then? It was present in your therapeutic practice and your culinary pursuits.”

“Despite my unorthodox methods, my patients almost universally found great relief under my care and my guests always left happy, full, and hoping for another invitation. It is not sadism if everyone is enjoying themselves. That would be a contradiction in terms.”

“How do you explain your interior design then, other than deeply creepy? Your art collection is gruesome.”

“It is a fair representation of European themes. Nothing more.”

“The horns and the skulls  -”

“-mere eccentricities. No different from my choices in suiting. Harmless fun.”

“Not for the kudu mounted on your wall.” 

“Tell me, Will. Many of your killers did confuse their pleasures. Is that something you fantasize exploring? Do you wish your only satisfaction to be found by co-mingling the violent with the erotic?”

“No,” Will sputters, flustered that he would even ask.

“Since you wish to speak of lovers and pleasures, you may be interested to learn that BDSM only provides the illusion of sadism and masochism through the machinations of consent. I suspect you have tired of illusions.”

“I have grown positively weary of them. Tell me something true.”

Hannibal brushes at the hair in his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. Quite unconsciously, Will mirrors the movement, fiddling with his own disobedient curls.

“We could talk of how you enjoy me like this. Disheveled. Imprecise. Seemingly vulnerable.”

“‘Seemingly’ being the operative word. Only a fool would believe you are anything but calculated with the most exacting of specifications. You are still in total control.”

“Not of you.”

“No. Not of me. Nor am I able to control you. Not entirely. It’s what escapes my sights that frightens me.”

“I am many things, Will, but I am not a true sadist. Like your empathy, the heightened senses I was born with are not easily managed.”

“You feel yourself too much. I feel everyone else but myself. We suffer from an affective abundance.”

“Although each of us is capable of it, I never wanted to give you cruelty, Will. I only wished to show you how we might pluck out and elevate the ugliness of the world that affronts us so uniquely.”

“But you used cruelty to achieve those ends! You hid my own illness from me; encouraged it with your hypnosis. You drugged me. Gutted me. Imprisoned me. You’ve tried and mostly succeeded at killing everyone close to me, time and again.”

Hannibal shifts in his chair, an odd rippling gesture of discomfort revealing itself on his surface. “And what did you do, Will?” His voice is barely audible and he’s gone completely still. “You wily, untamed, hurtful boy…”

Will stares down at his hands. Shame crawls up the back of his neck. “I…I refused to reciprocate the only true love and recognition you’ve ever known. That we'll ever know. Again…and again.”

“And again,” Hannibal finishes for him. There are unshed tears in his eyes.

Will cannot bear to witness Hannibal’s pain. “No more illusions, Hannibal. No more lies, no more glass. Not between us.”

He sniffs and takes a deep breath. “I concur. We are well past the need for pretensions.”

Will takes a deep swig of his cognac and sets the empty tumbler down on the coffee table, his mind made up. “Come with me.”

Hannibal hesitates before finishing his drink and following Will down the hallway.

 

In the bedroom, Will pulls out one of Hannibal’s tuxedos and sets it on the bed. He lays out a pair of shoes and accessories to match. “Get dressed.”

Hannibal resists the urge to ask where they are going and obeys. Will disappears into the bathroom to change into his own formalwear. He puts on an old pair of round, tortoiseshell glasses, salvaged from a former life. When he is ready, he finds Hannibal sitting at the edge of the bed, brimming with curiosity. 

“Did your mouth just go dry?” Will asks, seeing how his appearance has affected the good doctor.

“I believe it did, yes.”        

He smiles at the admission, glad to see Hannibal is willing to play along. “You asked me to attend the opera with you on several occasions.”

“I did. You refused.”

Will goes to the small wooden stereo on the armoire and turns it on. One of Puccini’s great arias lilts up to the ceiling, filling the room with passionate despair.

“I like music, Hannibal. Very much. It’s just that it overwhelms me. I get swept away when I empathize with the vocalists. I suspect you knew that.”

“I had hoped that was the case.”

“To test my reaction to an extremely stressful situation.”

“Yes - and possibly use it as an opportunity to bring you further into my confidence.”

“That would have been a lie, Hannibal. I’m going to smash your illusion and show you what I think of being toyed with like that in public, in the company of Baltimore’s snobby, vapid elite.”

Hannibal is a little breathless now. “Show me, Will.”

He turns up the volume on the stereo and waits a moment with eyes closed, letting the pendulum swing, once, twice, three times.

Will holds out his hand. Swallowing hard, Hannibal allows himself to be lead. Will jerks him forward without warning and throws him into the walk in closet, kicking the door shut behind him and violently shoving Hannibal against the back wall of clothing. Boxes jar off the shelves and fall open, spilling fine leather and tissue paper around them.

“I can’t do this, Hannibal! We’re only at intermission. You knew this would happen,” he accuses harshly.

Hannibal looks around the wardrobe, realizing Will means it to be the coat check at the Modell Performing Arts Center. He immediately understands the game. “Look at me, Will. You are not alone in this.” Unbidden, Hannibal’s hands have wended around his waist, keeping the man half-strangling him close. “It is not weakness to be overwhelmed by beauty. Can’t you see how it has moved you?” Will growls and pushes him further into a rack of blazers and Hannibal lets out a surprised laugh. Will adjusts his grip around his neck. “We should rejoin the others,” he chokes out. “Our absence will be noted.”

“No! You started this. You wanted to see me lose control in public.” Hannibal protests and Will smothers his mouth with a hand. Through the door, the muted sounds of the soprano soar into the night. Will closes his eyes as the music overtakes him, he swoons and flushes at the singer’s overtures of impending death and then he suddenly pulls back his hand and kisses Hannibal hard. He has one hand around Hannibal’s throat and the other running desperate circles through his hair, mussing it beyond repair.

“I misjudged - ” Hannibal tries pointlessly.

“You…you who so love your dignity. You would deprive me of mine for your own amusement.”

He tries to deny it but is cut short by Will fumbling to undo his bowtie and kissing him again, this time forcing his tongue past Hannibal’s full lips and making him gasp. Will’s hands wander harshly over Hannibal’s body, finding his hard curves and valleys. In a single motion, he rips open Hannibal’s tuxedo shirt, sending mother-of-pearl buttons skittering across the wood floor. He dives into Hannibal’s skin, mouthing hungry kisses down his chest, pinching his firm nipples through the ruined cloth, palming his crotch into painful arousal. Hannibal is panting and moaning that they’ll be heard, all the while pulling Will closer, tasting his beautiful boy for the very first time.

“I’m going to make you sing, Hannibal. Everyone will know what I do to you. Will you sing for me?”

“What…how?”

Will stops, blinking slowly, leaving his last kiss with a departing bite to Hannibal’s bottom lip. “Get on your knees, cannibal,” he whispers.

There is a flash of anger in Hannibal’s eyes, followed by realization. “We’ll be found out. Disgraced.”

“Then you’d better be quick. Show me how much of your dignity you’ll give me just to see mine abandoned.” He takes off his glasses and puts them in his jacket pocket, then guides Hannibal down to the ground with a firm hand to the shoulder.

“Oh Will, I…” For once in his life, Hannibal is speechless. Will braces against a shelf and adjusts his stance to watch. He waits. If Hannibal had reservations, they evaporate when he sees the smoldering, daring desire pulsing off Will’s entire frame. He takes the pants zipper in front of his face down between two teeth and frees Will’s length. Shamelessly he inhales and moans, then licks the underside of Will’s cock, making it bounce obscenely.

It is happening so fast. Will is driving this moment and there’s no savoring it; this is what Hannibal has earned for pushing the man so unethically and he doesn’t even care. He’ll take whatever Will is offering, in whatever guise, whenever. He sucks the heavy erection with enthusiasm, swirling a tongue over the hard flesh and taking it deeper and deeper. Will clutches at the shelving for dear life and they’re both grunting and keening. It’s unclear who is enjoying this more. Hannibal works him into his throat and Will cries out and grabs Hannibal’s neck by the scruff. Hannibal responds by humming in ecstasy and sucking more vigorously. Will grows bold and pumps himself into Hannibal’s hot mouth and Hannibal smiles and makes a show of dragging his teeth along the exposed organ. Will bites his lip and rolls his hips more, holding Hannibal’s head and pushing his mouth onto him, making him moan and gag around his cock.

“That’s it. Look at you, Dr. Lecter, letting me fuck your mouth. So hungry to have me, anywhere, any way. Do you want it?”

“Mmysss,” he burbles.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes,” Hannibal gasps and sucks with loud, slurping noises, his own sounds joining Will into a depraved chorus. Their eyes meet and Will lets the final walls around his empathy go and he can feel how desperate they are to please and be pleased and its so so good and the feel of Hannibal moving underneath his hands only for him is just too much and…

Will orgasms so hard he nearly blacks out. Only in the last glorious moments does he pull out just enough to glaze the last few roping splatters over Hannibal’s absurdly erotic mouth, painting him in pleasure. Will is swaying against the wall, barely upright, while Hannibal carefully tucks him back in and straightens his clothing for him. He stands, his own apparel thoroughly destroyed. Somehow, through some dark art, Hannibal runs a hand through his wild hair and even covered in semen – perhaps because of how nonchalantly he wears the transgression - he manages to still look debonair and dangerous.

“Watch,” he tells Will and Will focuses again on the sight before him. Hannibal runs his tongue over the slick cum on his bottom lip and hums with a satisfied grin. Will leans in to lick off the rest and they kiss again, at first slowly, then building again into something so intimate it has them closer and more tangled than before.

“We missed the beginning of the third act,” Will says.

“So we did. Perhaps we’ll have to try again.”

“I take it you liked this rendition?”

“It was a stunning performance. Most unanticipated.”

A big, honest smile comes easily to Will. “They won’t miss us if we are gone a little longer.” Will’s hands go to unfasten Hannibal’s pants and he stops him.

“Let me. I’m already too far gone.”

Will crooks an eyebrow. Hannibal pulls himself out and starts caressing himself, hunting down another kiss from his pink-cheeked lover. Will glances down between them and he laughs in surprise at the thick, swollen cock in Hannibal’s hand.

“Eastern European boys…” he says, by way of justifying his unwieldy size.

“I guess so.”

Hannibal holds his gaze as he quickly starts to unravel, gasping in short pants and jerking involuntarily.

“You’re going to come?”

“Uh huh.”

Will hands Hannibal his dress jacket. “Come for your Will.”

Hannibal utters something that sounds suspiciously like a foreign curse and he ejaculates hard into his own coat, dropping his forehead on Will’s shoulder. Will nuzzles him and kisses his neck as he rides out the remains of his orgasm.

 

Once they have recovered and started straightening the disorder they caused in the closet, Hannibal asks, “Is this how it is going to be?” He is genuinely curious.

“This is how it was tonight. This was my design.”

Hannibal nods, still sucking on his lip unconsciously. “Then tomorrow shall be mine. Fair?” 

Will pauses and thinks, working his jaw nervously. “Of course,” he agrees, knowing he has no other choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I've taken a turn captaining the S.S. Graham Cracker garbage barge and I don't even know what the hell has just happened to the past 24 hrs of my time and I regret nothing. Will "Hidden-in-plain-sight" Playboy has gone full freak ahead and Hannibal is manning this ship as a thirsty af Lithuanian sailor, so just gird your loins ya'll. This thing took on another final chapter which I'm really looking forward to sharing with you because it got super romantic and steamy. Hope you're enjoying it! Love to hear feedback. 
> 
> Say hi to me at katamaran10 on tumblr.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will anxiously waits for payback after giving Hannibal a taste of how he would have misbehaved at the opera. Hannibal doesn't disappoint, nor does he do anything in half-measures. Art historical porn ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for sensitive readers: There is a brief scene of canon-compliant NON-CONSENSUAL DRUGGING and references to Will's anxiety about experiencing Hannibal's violent manipulation again. This story does NOT contain non-con sex.

Will spends the following day on tenterhooks, waiting for some devious payback for the hot, frantic, vulgarity he visited on Hannibal. Hannibal appears oblivious to his discomfort, happily puttering around the house, reshuffling the bookshelves and pantry items to better reconcile Will’s additions into his preferred organizational system. He occupies himself for hours in the kitchen preparing a sumptuous feast of roast duck. Will only interrupts when he hears grumbling in Lithuanian. He is informed that the house is woefully lacking in supplies for a decent table centerpiece.

“I’ve got some goose and turkey tail feathers out in the garage and there’s quail eggs in the fridge that are probably too far gone to safely eat. Would those work?”

Hannibal looks all too pleased with himself when he presents the result. Unhindered by improvisation, the centerpiece sails well past outlandish and takes a hard left at over-the-top. Will sets the rest of the table while Hannibal goes to the bedroom to change. When he returns, his hair is slicked back with styling cream and he has donned a dark summer-weight wool suit with a floral silk tie.

“Good to see you again, Dr. Lecter. I wondered how long you would try to resist the siren call of all those handsome suits gathering dust.”

“Alas, I have succumbed to temptation.” He places a gentle hand on Will’s shoulder, surveying the place settings with approval.

“But now I’m underdressed. Give me a sec.”

Will decides to complement him in a light grey suit. The pick stitching is done so exquisitely that Hannibal’s eyes keep roving over his lapels while they eat. Will talks about the music he listened to – and then couldn’t listen to – when he wanted to be reminded of Hannibal. Hannibal, on the other hand, waxes about having taken up landscape photography in place of his sketchbooks. “The only thing my pencils seemed to be capable of drawing was you.” Neither mention the fact that Will had framed and displayed several of the drawings he had found among Hannibal’s things. They were beautiful, if not overly complimentary, and Will takes too much pleasure at the fact that Bedelia was forced to appreciate Hannibal’s detailed study of his ass every time she hung her coat in the foyer.

It is a light and relaxed conversation, even for them. Will is starting to think Hannibal must be happy simply to partake in and share quiet domestic activities. He’s almost ready to concede that his day of keyed-up anxiety was misspent.

Almost.

They move to the sitting room overlooking the ocean for digestifs. Hannibal proposes a toast.

“To shattered illusions, dear Will.”

Will raises his cordial glass and takes a sip. The port tastes off. The rim of the glass had traces of....He looks to Hannibal and the walls of the room start to slide sideways.

“Oh fuuuc -” he slurs.

 

<> 

 

Will wakes to darkness. The soft choral sounds of music filter somewhere in the background. His limbs and tongue feel heavy. “Han..Hannibal?”

“Oh good, you’ve rejoined us.”

“Where are we?” He can smell flowers and burning firewood. His fingers tighten over what feels like the armrests of a chair.

“Would you be so good as to stay put and indulge me for a moment longer? Don’t move yet.”

“Okay.” Will’s heart is thundering in his ears.

“About half an hour ago you realized I drugged you.”

“Yes.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Panicked…and….”

“Go on.”

“I expected it. Something like that.”

“Is it fair to say you expected something violating your confidence in me and your consent? Are you expecting something violent now?”

He nods his head. When he does, he feels a knot at the back of his skull. He’s blindfolded. Hannibal doesn’t want him to see whatever awaits him.

“You cannot see anything. Where do you imagine you are?”

“I don’t know. I’m disoriented.”

“What do you _imagine_ I’ve done?”

“Taken me somewhere…Somewhere I don’t know. Where…I can’t escape. Am I tied down? My body feels so heavy. I know I am turned away from you and that you’re close, but...I’m…I’m scared.”

“You are feeling the effects of a very mild sedative. One I will never use on you again unless it is a medical necessity. I apologize for the misdirection. There’s nothing holding you down.” Will swallows thickly and shivers. “Your tie is blindfolding you. It is easily removed when you are ready.”

Dread blooms under his skin. He can feel the adrenalin coursing in his veins, telling him to run, run, run with every heartbeat. “Fuck, Hannibal...”

“Mind the language, dear one. You’re meant to be playing a part.”

“Who, exactly?”

“Baglione’s Sacred Love defeating Profane Cupid.”

Will crumples his brow. Some kind of painting? He doesn’t know it. He tries to pinpoint the music. “This is Fauré’s Requiem.”

“Indeed it is.” Hannibal had often played this when they drove somewhere together. It was soothing. Should he be soothed by this? His heartrate evens out as his brain starts to process what is happening analytically. “ _In Paradisum_ , to be precise. A work criticized by some for failing to convey the possible horrors of life after death. Far too happy, it was said. Ecstasy and bliss instead of fire and brimstone.”

A hesitant smile breaks across Will’s face. No detail here was insignificant. He wants to understand what Hannibal is trying to show him. He wants to see. “Can I get up?”

“But of course.”

Will pulls the tie off and finds that he is sitting in the master bedroom, facing the window. In his lap lay an arrow. His crossbow and quiver are set against the wall at his feet. He stands, arrow in hand, and turns.

Before him, splayed out in all his nude glory, is Hannibal, tangled in a meticulously posed white sheet on the floor. Behind him the fireplace is blazing, gilding the scene in a dancing, golden light. Cups of bountiful fruit have overturned and spilled. White goose feathers are scattered about and intermingled with leaves of sheet music and wildflowers.

It takes Will’s breath away. He steps toward the spectacle.

“Baglione and Caravaggio were masters and contemporaries, and like all great artists, they quarreled hideously over their secret admiration for each other. They spread libelous untruths about the other. They even took their battles to the courthouse.”

“Did either do time?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Caravaggio did. His case was not helped by his reputation for violence.”

“I see.” Christ, Hannibal could be heavy-handed with his metaphors.

“It was a brief stint, however, and Baglione later painted the work you see represented before you - to show the world his anger. He used Caravaggio’s own style to mock him. Contorted his depiction of Cupid and cast him to the ground in contempt.”

“He used Caravaggio's own brushstrokes to reveal his ridiculous delusions.” Will is starting to appreciate the irony. Hannibal did nothing by half-measures – not even in his own self-deprecation. It whets his fascination. He edges closer and peers down at him. As if on cue, Hannibal drops his head back just so and the firelight spills down over his knife-blade cheekbones, pooling shadows into his sensual lips and broad collar, highlighting every swelling muscle and contour in chiaroscuro perfection. He opens his amber eyes and stares up at Will with absolute contrition.

Will doesn’t hear his own gasp. He doesn’t feel his heart skip a beat. “Beautiful,” he says in awe.

“Look at you, vengeful angel. Only you understand pure emotion. Only you love how god loves – completely and without mercy.”

The arrow slides in Will’s hand and for a moment he’s struck with the impulse to impale the beauty before him. He is too perfect for mortals’ eyes. No one can see Hannibal like this but him. No one else can ever know he still walks this earth. Hannibal’s life is wholly in his hands. Forever. Until they are no more.

A sly smile slithers over Hannibal’s mouth. “Baglione painted two figures laying defeated under Sacred Love – Caravaggio’s Profane Cupid was but one.”

“And the other?”

“The devil himself.”

Will matches Hannibal’s devious smile.

“The feathers should be black,” he says of the décor scattered around them.

“Only Caravaggio painted blasphemous, black-winged angels, Will. We’re in Baglione’s vision.”

“Suppose all we are is the profane. Suppose all I want is a fallen angel. What then?”

Hannibal looks at him, naked and open. “Then that poor broken soul should count himself unreservedly blessed.”

Will tosses the arrow aside and falls on Hannibal, searching out his mouth. Hannibal arches to receive him and they moan at the contact – skin over skin, tongue upon tongue, breathe exchanged for fleeting, ragged breath. Will’s attention is furious. He pours every bit of his empathy at him, devouring him with hungry hands and a hungrier mouth. Feathers and fruit go flying, scattered thoughtlessly in every direction. The logs in the fire shift suddenly with a loud crack, sending angry red sparks floating up above them.

“I’m spoiling your pretty picture,” Will pants.

“This is our canvas, Will. Yours and mine.”

“You’d let someone change your perfect design?”

“You’re the only one. It’s only ever been you. The first and last.”

Will rakes a hand through Hannibal’s coif and drags his nails down his sides for good measure. “We’ll be ruined with pleasure by the end of it.”

“A fine way to go.”

“So long as we’re together. Always, yes?”

“Always, Will.”

Will’s next words are unplanned, but he means them wholeheartedly. “Promise me, Hannibal.”

Hannibal’s hands link in his and he pulls Will close. “I promise you. I promise on my sister’s grave,” he swears and time slows for one epic, interminable second. The flicker of flame catches in Hannibal’s bloody eyes and Will feels lightheaded. The bargain has just sealed their fate. There is no going back. There is only forward.

“Take off your armor, _mylimasis_.” Will sits up astride Hannibal and struggles out of his waistcoat, then his shirt, pausing to paste a trail of kisses down Hannibal’s torso. When he works out of his pants, Will bites his way back up his inner thighs, sending Hannibal grasping blindly at the tousled sheet below them. In an instant, Will is free of his clothes and sets upon Hannibal with renewed determination.

 

The first time Will takes Hannibal’s length in his mouth, Hannibal spreads his legs wide in wanton pleasure and cries out. The second stroke has him gasping in Lithuanian. On the third, Will brushes a wet thumb behind his taut testicles and makes Hannibal pray to the god of forgotten control.

“Will!” he sobs in shock. Will raises his head from where he was at work, dripping cock lodged deep in his throat.

“What?” he says, releasing him with as rude a pop as he can muster.

Hannibal’s mouth drops open and he blinks hard to steady himself. “You’re…you’re positively wicked. Where…or…how…”

He smiles and licks a long stripe up the side of the dick in his hand. “I worked vice when I was on the force. Sometimes I didn’t have the heart to bust the nice ones.” Hannibal makes a strangled sound and drops back flat on the ground. He is done for.

“Oh you didn’t know, did you?” Will abandons his groin and works elsewhere, realizing he’s moved too fast, taken Hannibal too far to the edge, too soon. He falls into a deliberate pace, discovering Hannibal’s body, giving him delicate tingling pleasures and nibbles here and there. He kisses his palms, those hands that bring such beauty and horror. He kisses the scars on his wrists, the scornful love note he sent via Matthew Brown. He sinks his teeth into the gunshot scar on his belly, imagining he can taste salt and blood and kidney.

“You fancied me an innocent. A pliable boy for your strict training.” He inches down, licking and sucking the flange of Hannibal’s hip. Every inch he moves lower keys Hannibal’s body up another note. Hannibal’s keening now, close to begging. As if reading his mind, Will says, “You’ll have to ask for what you want.”

“Please,” he murmurs. Dissatisfied with the answer, Will gives Hannibal’s balls a firm tug. “Ah…Yes, please.”

He licks between the hot globes of his ass.

“ _Mano meilė, prašome_ …Please!!”

“I didn’t say to ask _nicely_ , Hannibal.” He pauses and pushes his tongue inside. Hannibal is incoherent, knees drawn up, words drowned in sensation, arms twisting in divine agony. Will slides a wet finger in place of his tongue and strokes, breaching his most sensitive place. He adds a second and Hannibal grows even more nonsensical, waggling cock leaking all over his abdomen and writhing under Will’s touch.

Suddenly the pressure is gone. “Will!” he bellows.

“What is it?”

Hannibal sits up, wild eyed and nostrils flaring. “You fuck me this instant you rude, kinky boy!”

Will smiles in triumph. “I’ve been waiting _years_ to hear that delectable mouth utter something so filthy. All those filthy things you put into it on a daily basis. I can’t imagine a more perfectly obscene thing _finally_ coming out of it. All. Because. Of me.” He rolls back on his ankles and stretches out, slicking his rock hard erection with a free hand.

“Lascivious, wretched -”

“Shut up and have me, since you’ve asked so well.”

Hannibal is on his hands and knees in a flash and is crawling over Will, looking like a lion on the hunt. He first licks into Will’s mouth then dips down and sucks messily on his cock. Will groans, grabbing a hank of Hannibal’s hair.

“Oh fuck you’re good at that!”

“Shhhh, rude one. Please.” Hannibal drizzles a lubricant on him and straddles Will’s lap. He kisses the fingertips of each of Will’s hands, letting their arousal slide together, and then drops to cage him in with muscular arms. Will gazes up at the powerful beast. He is taken aback by how tenderly he nuzzles him, how reverently he kisses him, how carefully those deadly teeth are sheathed just for him.

“You’re so beautiful,” Will whispers.  Hannibal cups his face and rolls his hips and sinks down, inch by blessed inch, to take everything Will has to offer.  

 

When their bodies conjoin, there is nothing and no one else. Neither can breathe, the contact is so intense. Neither can think, the sensation is so complete. Words aren’t enough. A lifetime won’t be enough.

It seems like an eternity passes before Hannibal cants his hips slowly and Will’s eyes roll back. He tightens his grip around Will’s shoulders to bring him back into the present.

“Is this okay?” Will asks.

Hannibal is so overcome he cannot speak. He simply closes his dark eyes in agreement.

“Show me, Hannibal. Show me how wrong I was.”

Hannibal starts making love to him at a torturous, heartrending pace. This is no display. There is no artifice, no tableau. It is simply Hannibal, growing slick with sweat at his efforts to please his lover. Hannibal, a man apart from all others. Hannibal, full of uncomposed need and desire and lust. Hannibal, finally surrendering himself completely.

Will slowly traces his hands over Hannibal’s strong back, down to his hips, over his round ass. He presses into him and Hannibal lets a soft moan into the shell of his ear. The sound goes straight to Will’s groin and makes him even harder, if that is possible. Will matches the movement again and Hannibal groans louder.

“Harder,” he asks.

Will sits up and wraps his arms around Hannibal and thrusts. Hannibal’s head falls back and Will feeds off his greediness, pounding into the hot heat gripping him. Hannibal braces on Will’s knees and starts shamelessly grinding onto his pelvis.

“That’s it. Ride me.”

He does.

“You like that cock?”

“Oh yes.”

“Take all of it, Hannibal.”

He lets out a guttural growl. “More. Say more.”

“Oh you like your filthy, rude boy?”

“Uh huh.”

“You want me to be your nasty boy?”

“Yes, yes....”

“I’m yours, Hannibal.”

“Mine…” Rivulets of perspiration slick the places where they are joined and Will isn’t sure, but Hannibal might be weeping from pleasure.

“I’m going to fuck you until all you know is my name.”

Hannibal’s response is something akin to an inarticulate howl. He clenches down on Will so hard he nearly wrings the orgasm out of him right then and there. Will holds him and turns them over, placing Hannibal’s hands around his hips. Hannibal guides him, pulling him, moving him faster and faster.

“Hot and fast, baby?”

“Yes.”

Will gives him just that, balls clapping loudly.

“Tell me,” Hannibal pants.

“I’m going to make you come.”

“Yes. God, yes.” Hannibal is most definitely sobbing.

“Ask me.”

“Will…”

“Say ‘Fuck me, Will’.”

Hannibal is too far gone to make the words. His mouth tries and comes out with disorderly sounds.

“Say it.” Will pulls all the way out and Hannibal’s eyes go wide.

“Fuck! Yes, okay Will? Please!”

Close enough. Will slams into him just right and Hannibal’s nails go straight into his back.

“Will!” he chants. “Oh, Will…Will, Will…” he tries to warn him.

“Oh god, Hannibal, I’m…”

The tension and the heat and passion draw out to the breaking point and they crash, exploding into orgasm. Hannibal is paralyzed by the shock, huge waves of cum jetting between their bellies, Will’s own release filling him up. Will’s heart is pounding in a crazed rhythm and he’s wrapped around Hannibal’s limp form like a second skin. He’s so overwrought he thinks he might die just like this. Hannibal is in the throes of nothing short of rapture.

 

When Will finally slides to Hannibal’s side, they lay there together, limbs tangled and eyes locked. Will runs his fingers through Hannibal’s hair, taming it back into place, resetting the mask he took off only for him. Hannibal strokes Will’s cheek over and over.

“Tell me something true,” Will mouths in near silence.

Hannibal lets out a soft sigh. “You came from a place beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Blindsided by me.”

“Very much so, yes. In the best of ways.”

Will traces the sensuous bow of his mouth and kisses him slowly, tongue curling in to taste him. “I’m in love with you, Hannibal. I have been for many years.”

He closes his eyes at the admission. “Sacred or profane?”

Will laughs. “Both. All. More than those words can contain.” He falls silent for a moment when Hannibal doesn’t respond. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome." There is hesitation in his voice. "Has this been revelatory?”

“Sinfully so. Although part of me hopes you think I have other misconceptions which need clarifying. Plus, I _am_ going to need you to train me a little if I'm to handle...all of that." He waves at the thick length still half-hard between Hannibal's legs.

"Is that right?" he snorts.

"This was gorgeous. And you…” He drops a kiss on the tip of his nose “…you were magnificent. I'm not sure I can surpass this.”

“Perhaps all the illusions have been shattered. Perhaps now we need only weave fairytales.”

Will settles a hand on Hannibal's chest. “Let it be a fairytale, then, _mano meilė_.”

Hannibal pulls back, stunned.

“What? You thought the Lecter heir wouldn’t trouble himself to pick up a bit of the family language?”

Hannibal kisses him hard, uncaring that they are sticky and rolling on the ground in the ruins of their lovemaking. He reaches for the bottle of Lecter Dvaras port he’d brought upstairs.

Will grabs it for him and pulls the cork out with his teeth. “What shall we toast to?”

“To family, I should think,” Hannibal says.

“To family - and to fairytales.” He takes a swig straight from the bottle and feeds it to Hannibal from his mouth.

<>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mylimasis - darling  
> Mano meilė, prašome - My love, please  
> mano meilė - my love
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the story! Please leave feedback or come say hi to me at tumblr (katamaran10).


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